1. 1893: The overthrow of the Hawaiian monarchy.
2. 1898: Spanish-American War - Takeover of Cuba.
3. 1898: Spanish-American War - Takeover of Puerto Rico.
4. 1898: Spanish-American War - Takeover of the Philippines.
5. 1910: Installation of General Estrada in Nicaragua.
6. 1912: Installation of President Bonilla in Honduras.
7. 1953: Coup against Mossadegh in Iran.
8. 1954: Overthrow of Arbenz in Guatemala.
9. 1963: Coup against Diem in South Vietnam.
10. 1973: Coup against Allende in Chile.
11. 1983: Invasion of Grenada.
12. 1989: Invasion of Panama.
13. 2001: Invasion of Afghanistan.
14. 2003: Invasion of Iraq.

You ask about the motivations, and that is one of the patterns that comes through when you look at these things all together. There's really a three-stage motivation that I can see when I watch so many of the developments of these coups. The first thing that happens is that the regime in question starts bothering some American company. They start demanding that the company pay taxes or that it observe labor laws or environmental laws. Sometimes that company is nationalized or is somehow required to sell some of its land or its assets. So the first thing that happens is that an American or a foreign corporation is active in another country, and the government of that country starts to restrict it in some way or give it some trouble, restrict its ability to operate freely.

Then, the leaders of that company come to the political leadership of the United States to complain about the regime in that country. In the political process, in the White House, the motivation morphs a little bit. The U.S. government does not intervene directly to defend the rights of a company, but they transform the motivation from an economic one into a political or geo-strategic one. They make the assumption that any regime that would bother an American company or harass an American company must be anti-American, repressive, dictatorial, and probably the tool of some foreign power or interest that wants to undermine the United States. So the motivation transforms from an economic to a political one, although the actual basis for it never changes.

Then, it morphs one more time when the U.S. leaders have to explain the motivation for this operation to the American people. Then they do not use either the economic or the political motivation usually, but they portray these interventions as liberation operations, just a chance to free a poor oppressed nation from the brutality of a regime that we assume is a dictatorship, because what other kind of a regime would be bothering an American company?